


A Cup of Sugar

by baehj2915



Series: Single Dad Street [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Single Dad Street, Single Parents, Uncle Thorin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 04:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3195728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baehj2915/pseuds/baehj2915
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin has feelings. It's inconvenient. </p><p>Inspired by <a href="http://hackedmotionsensors.tumblr.com/">hackedmotionsensor</a>'s <a href="http://hackedmotionsensors.tumblr.com/tagged/single-dad-street-au">Single Dad Street AU</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cup of Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> The 1990s shows up a little more in this one? Maybe. The next one is a Kiliel fic, from Tauriel's POV and the 90s shows up a looot more in that. 
> 
> This one takes place a few weeks after [Good Fences](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2649992). As a reminder, as with the last fic, Frodo is around 5/6, Kili is 7, and Fili is 9. 
> 
> Thanks to zaphodbeeblebro for staying up late beta this for me. Your dedication to making me write bagginshield for you is staggering. <3
> 
> Again, you'll probably want to take a look at [hackedmotionsensor](http://hackedmotionsensors.tumblr.com/)'s [Single Dad Street AU](http://hackedmotionsensors.tumblr.com/tagged/single-dad-street-au), but mostly because it's way cooler than this. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> ~*~

By half eleven, Thorin had had enough. The phone had been ringing nonstop since he’d come in that morning. Questions about the upcoming land use bill, questions about health forms, questions about new disposal contractors for the slag iron. Questions about when Dis was coming back. 

He took a deep breath and powered through the offices, ignoring the judgmental glare of Dis’ secretary, Mrs. Goley-Nent. 

When she was introduced to Thorin she said, “You may call me Mrs. Goley-Nent,” when he tried to call her Eunice. She was a sharp-eyed, bespectacled middle-aged woman with her gray hair in a perpetual bun. She always managed to find him when he was hiding and very obviously hated him. But if he looked forward with determination without stopping until he got to his forge, the chances were she wouldn’t fish him out for a while. She hated going to the forge, though probably not as much as Thorin hated being in the office. 

“You have a conference call after lunch,” she said, like she already knew he was going to skive off for the rest of the day. 

“I’ll call Balin later. Something’s come up.” 

“Something important surely.”

Thorin frowned, but didn’t say anything. 

He hurried out of the office block, grabbed a hard hat off a hook, quickly by stepping his day shift foreman Bofur before he started into one of his stories, and ran into the shipping dock of the refinery. It was quite loud with activity, but he wasn’t there to inspect the loads. He ran up the stairs to the scaffolding in the rafters, to get to the east side of the building. 

Outside of the loading floor, and across from the cast building, were three smaller independent forges for smaller, more detailed projects. And one of them was entirely his. 

This one was smaller than his forge up north had been, but it was also more secluded. When he could work on his projects, Fili and Kili could come in and talk to him. He had an old fashioned bellows from his grandfather’s days, not hooked up to anything, and sometimes he’d have the lads take turns with it when they wanted to help him. Sometimes he’d let them wear his chainmail gloves, set up a piece of scrap metal in a vice, and let them “make” something out of it with blunted rock hammers. 

But since Dis left for Hyderabad, Thorin wasn’t simply overseeing the cast floor and working his own forge anymore. And with Frerin accompanying her, Balin was needed to run the mines with Thrain up north. Thorin had more bureaucratic responsibilities, more meetings, more phone calls, more time waiting for mine reports, more overseeing and approval of the entire works. 

He was hardly in his forge anymore. But he had snuck in early that morning to clean and prep his stove, determined to escape the office at some point today. In the office he felt cramped constantly, more uncomfortable than in the heat of the forge, constantly barraged by people and questions. 

In the forge he always felt clear-headed and able to think. 

So it was strange that while he waited for a clean fire to burn, not really having a hired project in mind or a specific project to build, brought his mind to Bilbo Baggins. 

There was nothing there to make the connection, which is exactly was made him angry. There was no compelling reason to think about Bilbo in his forge hours, or any other hours for that matter, at all. Which made him angrier. 

Thorin wanted to tell himself there wasn’t anything compelling or extraordinary about Bilbo Baggins. He was just a neighbor. The man wasn’t too wealthy or too loud, or too ferocious or too talkative. He wasn’t objectionable or exciting. He wasn’t particularly attractive or particularly ugly. He was sedate and normal. He putted around in his garden at all hours, when he wasn’t inside writing or drinking tea. And by all reasonable measures, Thorin should have found him dull. 

Thorin longed to find him dull. 

Perhaps if he had never been introduced as he had been—making an arse of himself and coming off in the best light as inept and thoughtless, and in the worst as cruel and careless—Thorin would have never had cause to know Bilbo. As it was, they’d been thrown into seeing sides of each other most neighbors never saw, or at least until one of them set fire to something across the property line. So what he knew of Bilbo Baggins was that he was utterly dependable, charming regularly, defensive when needed, and too kind for his own good. 

And those qualities were more than extraordinary. 

Bilbo had already volunteered to care for Fili and Kili on multiple occasions, and even fed him a few desperate nights when Thorin couldn’t leave the works until after eight or nine. This was all while Thorin attempted to keep the refinery on an even keel while training his crew on how to work and assemble the new roll grinder, and while most of his family was in India, trying to buy mines so they could branch out and stay afloat. And after their initial fight, when Bilbo chastised him for leaving the boys at home, Bilbo had been very kind to him in other ways too and generally appeasing Thorin's uselessness. He gave him tea to help him sleep. He told stories to the boys. One night, he set out a tent in his yard so the boys could camp outside.

Bilbo even stayed up late with him some nights after the boys were sent to bed to talk and share a cigarette. 

Well, Thorin smoked cigarettes. Bilbo smoked loose-leaf tobacco in a pipe. It was typically old fashioned and surprisingly adorable. 

Thorin sighed, pulling himself out of a daze angrily. The smoke was growing out of his fire and he turned over a few kernels of coke with his stoker to check their color, and then set an iron dowel into the center of the flames. 

Why the hell was he thinking anything about Bilbo Baggins was adorable? 

As so often happened in the forge, Thorin’s focus eventually narrowed significantly. As though he were able to forget about the rest of the world momentarily and know only how to shape the metal in front of him. It wasn’t until there was a loud banging and a gust of cooler air, announcing someone entering his forge, that he realized at least a few hours must have passed. 

His first iron dowel had become a shapely S-hook, nearly completed in his gloved hand. Which was… a little strange. He could make S-hooks by muscle memory and sightless at this point. S-hooks were the first thing anyone learned to make in a forge, and in a year or two he’d teach Fili how to hammer one out. But he didn’t know why he was squaring out the edges, like he was planning to engrave it, or why he started such a rudimentary project. He looked back to his stove, where he’d lined up a dozen iron dowels, like he was going to make more S-hooks later. 

Bofur poked his head through the door with a grin and shouted over the vent, “Oi boss! The kiddos are here!” 

Thorin tamped down a flare of concern. If they were hurt or any other disastrous thing, it’d be unlikely that a smiling Bofur would announce their presence. Bilbo was peering slightly over Bofur’s shoulder, like he was standing on his toes, with a calm, curious expression on his face. So everything must have been fine. Thorin felt a twinge of disappointment, though. He was sweat-covered from the forge and he was sure he hadn't trimmed his beard properly in a few days now. He tossed his S-hook in the ice bucket, where it sizzled slightly and sank to the bottom. 

Thorin stood from his anvil and went over to his stove to close the air vents a little, to cool the fire. “Bring them in.” 

Fili and Kili walked in first, taking their hard hats off by the door. Kili made a beeline for Thorin with a deep frown and a white bandage on his face. Kili was too old to _ask_ to be picked up, but Thorin could tell that’s what he wanted anyway and scooped him from the ground without hesitation. He smelled strongly of garlic and immediately tucked his face into Thorin’s neck. 

Bilbo came in cautiously, removing a spare hard hat that must have been Bofur’s himself because it said ‘Line Foreman’ and a sticker with a skull and crossed hammer and mattock on it. Bilbo fluffed up his curly hair again with his free hand. Frodo was glued to his leg, but peering from behind him with big eyes at the forge. 

“Mister Baggins was telling me our Kili had a little confrontation with a bee’s nest,” Bofur said.

Bilbo smiled apologetically. “He got stung three times, poor thing. He’s alright, but tired and cranky and in pain now. He wanted to see you. I hope it’s okay we came.”

Thorin found words were not coming to him easily for whatever reason. He nodded and said, “That’s good,” but it sounded like he hadn’t spoken in a decade or so. 

Bofur cleared his throat, drawing Thorin’s eyes away from Bilbo. “Do you want I should tell Mrs. Goley-Nent you’re busy with _important visitors_? She’s lookin’ for you.”

Of course she was. “Yes, thank you, Bofur.” 

Before stepping out he waved at Bilbo and said, “Thanks for the advice, Mister Baggins.” 

“Oh, not at all. Your delphiniums should perk right up. And call me Bilbo.”

Bofur winked at that, which was unsettling. And seemed to laugh at Thorin on the way out. Thorin relaxed knowing they’d just been talking about gardening, and made a mental note to hit him with something before the week was out. 

Kili sniffed wetly and loudly into his neck and thrust his arm out in front of Thorin’s face to get his attention again. There was a bandage on his arm that also emanated a garlic smell. 

“Er,” Thorin started, wondering how to ask if Bilbo fed his nephews a bulb of garlic for some reason. 

“It’s for the stings,” Bilbo supplied, coming closer, but looking at the fire on the stove. “Crushed garlic to reduce the swelling.” He eyed Kili with fondness and said, “The bandages are also to help ease the pain, right Kili?” 

Kili nodded. 

Bilbo said quietly leaning in toward Thorin’s other ear, “Just take them off before his bath tonight. He wanted bandages because he got hurt. If he’s still in pain later, another half hour with an ice pack should help.” 

Thorin nodded. He wasn’t sure how to continue speaking with Bilbo, even though he wanted to, but was inconveniently, or conveniently, interrupted by the sound of Fili pulling the S-hook Thorin had made out of the ice water. 

Fili held it up over him, with cold, soot-flecked water dripping on his shirt. “Cool! It’s still warm!” 

Kili, belying his former sad, sniffling state, threw himself over Thorin’s arm, grabbed the hook out of Fili’s hand, and almost smacked Thorin in the head with it. “Neat!” he said brightly. “What is it?” 

“What does it look like?” 

“An _ess_ ,” Fili said with a question on his face.

“That’s what it’s called. An S-hook. Just a utility hook. Nothing special.” 

“It looks quite pretty for nothing special,” Bilbo said, pointed at the angled points of the ends of the hook. He was leaning over Thorin’s unencumbered arm, at about shoulder height, because he was short and there was nothing interesting or cute about that that should make Thorin’s arm tingle slightly. “It looks like something I used to hang up my philodendrons at home. Er, my old house. The old homestead, as it were. But prettier. More elegant.” 

Bilbo laughed somewhat nervously and stepped back from Thorin. 

Thorin had a sudden image of a set of a dozen or so S-hooks, with some acid etching neatly detailed on the sides, something like a miniature version the knot work designs he’d put on the last sword hilt he’d made. Bilbo would probably find it attractive and like it exactly for hanging plants. And perhaps he could make some matching wall mounts for any he wanted to hang indoors, and possibly some link chain, though he’d probably want rope instead. 

His chest filled up with some kind of trepidatious, but purposeful feeling. 

“Oh, shit,” he said out loud, accidentally. 

Four sets of eyes looked at him with varying levels of mischievous disapproval for swearing when he shouldn’t and he shook his head in apology. He motioned vaguely behind him at the stove. 

“I should adjust the…” He scrambled for a word in the face of the realization he was already at the crafting themed gift stage of falling for Bilbo Baggins. “Airflow,” he spat out uselessly. 

“Oh, well, do you have time to give Frodo and I a little tour while we’re here? I’ve been curious about how all this works. It’s okay if you have to get back to work. We can go—“ 

“No, that’s,” Thorin swallowed hard and put Kili back on the ground, who seemed to have already rebounded fast from his grievous injuries, running to Fili, and promptly began hitting each other with his chain mail gloves. “That’s a fine idea.” 

Even the wrath he’d face later from Mrs. Goley-Nent for skiving off the whole day was worth the excited glint in Bilbo’s eyes. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
